More Arrow

Yes, Oliver Queen is still alive — you didn’t really think they’d kill the star of the show, did you? The show has always done a good job of connecting the flashback story to the present-day arc, and the big reveal that Maseo (Karl Yune) and Katana (Rila Fukushima) are behind Oliver’s (Stephen Amell) apparent rescue was no exception.

Producer Andrew Kreisberg told The Hollywood Reporter that Wednesday’s midseason return, along with the next two episodes, will essentially serve as a three-part mini-arc to pay off Oliver’s faceoff with Ra’s al Ghul. While Ollie is on the mend, the rest of the team has to deal with his absence — and the fact that he may never (as far as they know) return:

“We sat down and said 'what can we do to make these episodes epic?’ These three episodes are a trilogy essentially of what happens in Starling City when the world thinks Oliver Queen is dead, and it allows every character on the show to rise or fall, depending on the circumstances they find themselves in.”

Executive producer Marc Guggenheim chimed in with Kreisberg to note that the growth and evolution of Team Arrow over the next few weeks will have far-reaching repercussions, and that the changes over the next two episodes will leave the series forever changed. The gang will live or die without Oliver, and those revelations will matter long after he eventually returns:

Kreisberg: “You can't do an ending like we did in episode nine and resolve it in one episode. Even beyond this sort of trilogy, the repercussions of Oliver's actions are felt throughout the rest of the season. It’s that moment that really changes the world of Arrow forever. One of the things that characters discover along the way is there is no going back.”

Guggenheim: “The best ideas in the life of the show have always come when it's Greg [Berlanti], Andrew and I in a room together, and we're throwing out crazy shit to each other, and we stop and go ‘wait a minute, that's crazy — but it does this, this, this and this,’ and suddenly you see all the dominoes start to fall. That’s when we get really excited. It's not just about the idea — it's about the 50 ideas it leads to.”

Arrow airs Wednesday nights on The CW. What did you think of the midseason premiere?